F*ck Feelings (28 page)

Among the wishes people with breaking relationships express are:

• To find a way to feel the same, or make the other person feel the same, as before

• To figure out why they were so stupid

• To get the other person to see what they have and why it's worth saving

• To get the other person to see what they don't have and why it's worth walking away

Here are three examples:

I think my ex-girlfriend was sexually abused, and needed to know that she could trust me. I was very gentle with her, and I never loved anyone the way I loved her. What I can't understand is why we were very close one day, and the next day she stopped talking to me and said we needed to take a break. I spend all my time trying to figure her out, and how I can get her to see how much I love her. Obviously, she needs more reassurance, but I don't know how to do it. My goal is to understand how to make her feel loved and win her back.

I always had a good relationship with my husband, so it destroyed me when I found messages on his cell phone and discovered he was having an affair. He was very remorseful and says there was no issue, but that just makes me more mistrustful. I don't think I can trust him again until I know why he did it. My goal is for us to get to the root of the problem.

When I broke up with my ex-boyfriend three months ago after a year of dating, I tried to be very clear, but not unkind; we had a good time together, but I didn't see a future for us, so I wanted to move on. He was devastated and tried to convince me I was wrong for a few days, but I held firm, and he finally seemed to get it. The problem is that he now wants to “be friends,” but it turns out his definition of being friends is a lot like dating. He calls me all the time, keeps trying to make plans, and as guilty as I feel about saying no, I feel guiltier about saying yes because I'm just leading him on. My goal is to get my ex to understand that it's over without having to really hurt him.

Because relationships can have a competitive element (e.g., who will win control of the TV, the right not to take out the garbage, custody of the kids, etc.), they're often compared to sports, particularly baseball. That might work when you're comparing sex to home base and rejection to striking out, but overall, the metaphor doesn't totally work.

That's because in baseball, when a team loses, there's always the next game, and when the season's over, there's always next year. Hope springs eternal in America's pastime.

On the other hand, when a relationship is in big trouble and not getting better—as in, all strategies have been tried and Hail Marys have failed—then there is no hope. You can't improve or have a rematch the next day; you can only accept things as they are and decide what to do.

Of course, it's human nature for you or your partner to keep trying, and propose one more talk, therapy session, or set of rules for ending hostilities or solving an issue that isn't going to go away. Yogi Berra would agree that it ain't over till it's over, but don't pretend it's not over when it is.

If you want a chance to get back into the game with this or another franchise, however, you owe it to yourself to stop the bleeding, figure out exactly what went wrong, and either accept the team you have or start over. Obsessing or ruminating over what you should have done is a waste of time; learn from your mistakes and move on.

Some people's love has a limited use-by date (see: borderlines sidebar
here
) and when trust is gone, the relationship is over, even though, as far as you can see, you did nothing wrong.

When she first loves you, she's crazy about you because you're better than all those prior lovers who always let her down, but when she sees you're not the messiah, then she's crazy with disappointment, or just crazy, period. Any anger, incomprehension, or protest you express is further proof you can't be trusted.

Look into your ex-partner's past, and you'll discover similar trust swings. The first swing may well have been triggered by actual sexual abuse, but later swings, you'll discover, involved lovers who were not abusive, but your partner experienced them as if they were. So you're fucked, but you're not alone.

While your heart is mending, learn to spot the warning signs so you won't make the same mistake twice: e.g., intense intimacy right off the bat, a feeling of being a savior, if not The Savior, super sex (no offense to the Savior), and a string of evil past lovers. As we've said before, if a relationship begins with sudden or near-baseless feelings of love, don't be shocked if it ends with sudden or near-baseless feelings of mistrust.

More complex is the problem caused by a partner—usually a guy—who loves you but is also impulsively responsive to exciting, shiny new relationships and endless sexts from someone-not-you. If you're a nice, humble person, you may wonder what you did wrong, or whether there was a problem that you failed to perceive.

You will wish, very strongly, that you or a therapist could fish out an issue from your partner's past or present involving hidden anger or unconscious needs that, once expressed and shouted or cried over, would never cause infidelity again. Unless your therapist is a genie, that wish will be in vain.

The good news is that your partner probably loves you as much as ever. The bad news is that the tendency toward infidelity, like one toward addiction, is not curable, and that's what a good therapist will tell you.

Decide for yourself whether you can accept your partner's having this kind of weakness and whether he recognizes having it and seems determined to do better at controlling it in the future. If he pleads and says it will never happen again, his thinking is as wishful/bullshitty as yours. If he says it's hard to resist, but he's going to join a twelve-step group to help him stay away from trouble, he might actually succeed.

What's most important is not to take the problem personally or try to solve it once and for all. Once the anger has started to fade, decide whether your partnership—which you now know is higher risk than you thought—is worth continuing. You can salvage it if you wish, but what you're salvaging is not what you thought you had in the first place.

Sometimes, of course, you're the one who falls out of love, which is particularly likely to happen as you get to know someone who is not nearly as good at doing his share as he first seemed. That's why the getting-to-know-you phase of a relationship is important and carries risks of heartbreak for both sides.

Your job isn't to feel guilty for dumping someone and then to stick around to feel her pain, particularly when you began a relationship honestly believing it could work out. Review your conduct to see if you did right, given how you felt at the time. If you were honest
and had good intentions, the pain of a breakup can't be helped and shouldn't be your responsibility.

Don't try to “friend” your ex into feeling better, particularly when you see it prolongs their need to hold on to the old relationship. Say good-bye, putting your own judgment ahead of what your ex says is best and effectively putting her out of her misery. The difference in your perceptions is one of the main reasons you couldn't continue the relationship and decided to move on.

Don't try to salvage relationships if it doesn't seem possible or desirable. As much pain as it may cause you or your partner, accept what you've got and learn from it. Then you'll be much more likely to do better next time and find a love that doesn't need to be salvaged because it had a better foundation from the beginning. You might need a rebuilding year or two before you win it all, but it's the losing seasons that make victory possible.

Here's what you wish for and can't have:

• To avoid heartbreak for you or your partner

• To keep a good thing going or get it going again

• To not feel responsible for heartbreak

• To take all the responsibility for mending the break

Here's what you can aim for and actually achieve:

• Not be a schmuck, even though you're hurting and it's probably unfair

• Do all the right things to communicate, figure out if you did anything wrong, make amends, and improve what you can (until you can't)

• Accept it when you've run out of things you can try

• Decide what's best to do with the pieces

• Spot the flaws sooner next time (assuming they could have been seen in the first place)

Here's how you can do it:

• Shut up about your negative feelings and be patient, attentive, and understanding, even if you're hurt, angry, and misunderstood

• Ask for ideas from friends, family, and, last resort (as they're expensive), shrinks

• List what you can do to improve the relationship, then go down your list and force yourself to stop if your list is complete and things aren't better

• Be judgmental—i.e., judge whose weaknesses are responsible for the breakdown—not in order to blame, but to decide what you can do

• Ask yourself what you want to do about this relationship if it is what it is

• Look for some way to improve your selection process next time, even if it means being alone for a long time.

Here's what to say when you're faced with a relationship that's ending.

Dear [Self/Unhappy-with-Relationship Partner],

I don't want to [give up on/destroy/endure another painful second of] our relationship, but I've tried [expressing my feelings/shutting up about my feelings/making all the effort] and things aren't changing. I will finally accept that we can't change this relationship [in five minutes/with all the therapy-speak that ever was/if we're arrested again] and decide whether we'll live [together/apart/with one of us in witness protection]. Even if it can't help me change this [synonym for shitshow], there may be a lesson here about what I need to make love work, and if there is, I will learn it.

Love and hate may feel like opposites, but they're equally huge challenges to your being a good person who makes smart choices. Love can push you to ignore your own needs, get attached to the wrong person for the wrong reason, and feel like a loser simply because you're loveless. Working hard at managing love doesn't mean becoming supremely unselfish and generous in a totally unconditional, nonjudgmental way; it means becoming very judgmental about what you can expect from people and yourself and putting conditions on whom you allow yourself to get close to, love be damned. You can manage love successfully, but it requires lots of learning from painful experience and a willingness to do without until both your heart and your head agree that the right thing has come along.